1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a male terminal having a connection portion for connection to a female terminal which connection portion is formed by bending an electrically-conductive sheet material.
2. Background
A male terminal 30 shown in FIG. 11 is formed by bending an electrically-conductive sheet material, and has a clamping portion 31 and a connection portion 32. The clamping portion 31 includes a pair of wire sheath clamping portions 33 and 33, and a pair of conductor clamping portions 34 and 34. A sheath 35a of a wire 35 is clamped by the pair of wire sheath clamping portions 33 and 33, and a conductor 35 is clamped by the pair of conductor clamping portions 34 and 34, and by doing so, the male terminal 30 is fixedly secured to the wire 35. The connection portion 32 is adapted to be electrically connected to a female terminal (not shown), and includes a bottom base portion 36 and a contact portion 37 which are superposed together (see FIG. 12).
However, although the connection portion 32 is so bent and folded that a space will not be formed between the bottom base portion 36 and the contact portion 37 as shown in FIG. 12, the bottom base portion 36 and the contact portion 36 are resiliently deformed away from each other because of spring-back when a bending load is removed. Therefore, it is difficult to form the connection portion 32 into a thickness Tl twice larger than a sheet thickness t of the bottom base portion 36 and the contact portion 37.
Therefore, the connection portion 32 is formed in such a manner that a space 40 is formed between the bottom base portion 36 and the contact portion 37, as shown in FIG. 13, and there may arise a problem that during transport of the male terminal 30, this space 40 is crushed, so that the thickness T2 of the connection portion 32 is changed, which leads to an incomplete electrical connection between the connection portion 32 and the female terminal.
Another problem is that during assembly and maintenance, the space 40 is crushed, so that the thickness T2 of the connection portion 32 is changed, which leads to an incomplete electrical connection between the connection portion 32 and the female terminal.